Benz and listening

I have had the habit of running since high school, but for more than ten years, I have always been running without a single ride. It was not until a few years ago that I clearly felt that my physical strength began to decline, and then I thought about maintaining my physical and mental health through serious running.

In late July this year, I bought a sports watch to urge myself, and after monitoring the training status through various data, I became more and more addicted to this role-playing game called runner. In order to keep improving myself and gain a sense of accomplishment from my step-by-step progress, I gradually increased my weekly running from 25 kilometers to 50 kilometers. On the other hand, I also began to read and borrow books seriously, specializing in all kinds of knowledge about running, and learning about warm-up, key points of running, nutrition, and injury prevention.

In the past, the main goal of running was to run a full mile, and there was no monitoring of the watch. Over time, the brain gradually becomes accustomed to thinking as much as possible while jogging, the body seems to have turned on automatic navigation, and the footsteps will lead itself forward. Even sometimes, in this almost mobile meditation state, I suddenly figured out something, or had the inspiration to write.

Therefore, when I heard that Kipchoge, the king of the fastest marathon, once said in an interview: "I run with my heart and spirit." I did not feel a deep resonance, but only vaguely realized that the king has his own philosophy of running, and I couldn't understand the truth of the slogan.

When it comes to running, a seemingly simple exercise, there are quite a few details worth paying attention to. And when I started to want to run faster, I finally slowly penetrated into the inside of running and started more conversations with my body.

I have a deep understanding of my personality, which is easy to persevere at certain moments, so in order to prevent myself from failing to make progress, I first became a wounded soldier. I regarded preventing myself from being injured as the top priority in jogging and the highest criterion for swinging my feet.

When I took a deep look at my running posture, stride frequency and stride length, I gradually realized that running such a pure activity is a good way to train my ability to focus. And when the body is more focused on each moment of running, the way time flows is actually quite different from when the mind flows.

I imagined seeing my running posture from a distance, watching my footsteps engrossed in my feet, and listening to the familiar melody and drum beats that sounded in my earphones, I realized from it that running and listening can be the same thing. And through this layer-by-layer understanding, I can't help but feel that every big thing in life has its own metaphor.

When I was traveling in Australia, in order to make a living from music, I lost my passion for music in street performers. It wasn’t until later that I realized that no matter how much I love things, if I keep overloading myself and force myself to do it endlessly, one day you may be backed by that invisible burnout. That's actually the same thing as forcing yourself to over-practice and run to cause injury.

In the future, when I let go of my obsession with music and put my passion for music as the top priority, I felt a lot easier at first. But when I still see many seniors and underachievers emerging or shining on this road, I still feel unreconciled that I have not been able to make a difference in music.

Once, I came across an exclusive interview with Kazuma Oda, a singer who is over seventy years old this year. Oda Kazuo was in the middle of singing practice, when a beautiful high-pitched sentence fell, he suddenly stopped and berated himself and said, "It's not like this, my heart is not singing at all."

I was very impressed with that scene. In those few seconds of the picture, I seemed to see the same attitude towards loving things and the regret of my inability to do anything. How I want to be like him, to die. And I can't.

People who are full of enthusiasm and have nowhere to put, often have no sense of humor. I used to think that it was because I took every detail of a thing seriously, and it was my incomparable persistence that made me look so serious when I was serious. But I never saw through it, I just lost to my inner self.

Only by listening to your heart can you run fast. Only by listening to your heart can you sing.